Ukraine has ordered the evacuation of thousands of children and their parents from frontline settlements in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions amid advancing Russian troops, a Ukrainian official said on Friday.
“Due to the difficult security situation, a decision was made to forcibly evacuate more than 3,000 children and their parents from 44 frontline settlements in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions,” Restoration Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said on Telegram.
Kuleba added that evacuations are also ongoing in the northern Chernihiv region, which borders Moscow-allied Belarus and has been targeted by Russian shelling.
“In total, 150,000 people have been evacuated from frontline areas to safer regions since June 1. Among them are nearly 18,000 children and more than 5,000 people with limited mobility,” he said.
READ ALSO: Russia Pounds Ukraine With Massive Overnight Strikes
Russian forces, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, have been advancing through the industrial Dnipropetrovsk region. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Russian advances have been slower compared with the embattled eastern regions but have accelerated in recent months. Moscow has claimed to have captured new settlements in both regions.
In September 2022, Russia announced the official annexation of the Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Lugansk, and Kherson regions, although it has not claimed full military control over all areas.